Taxing After the Fact - What if The Money Is Already Spent and Other Remarks

[K Gardner]

I've never heard of this. Hell, I don't want those jerks to keep the money either, but taxing after the fact, with a whole new made-up tax just for this circumstance? Is that even constitutional?

And not that I give a tinker's damn, but what if the 90% the IRS wants is already spent? Then does the IRS confiscate their house, bank accounts and everything they own? Again, something just doesn't smell right about this to me. Shouldn't there be some other way to get the money back?

And the other thing, and boy howdy do I dread going into work this weekend.. the Freepers at work are going to have a FIELD DAY with this. PROOF, they'll say, that we're going to put "them all in concentration camps."

If someone could explain to me how this is going to work, I'd appreciate it. Will the Senate pass this thing, I wonder?

[Horse with no Name]

1. I think it is a Bill of Attainder

which is strictly verboten under the Constitution.
I didn't approve of bush trampling the Constitution to score petty political victories and I don't approve of the Democrats trampling the Constitution for the same reason.
The end does NOT justify the means.

[K Gardner]

4. Very interesting article on Wikipedia about Bills of Attainder..

A bill of attainder (also known as an act or writ of attainder) is an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial. Bills of attainder are forbidden by Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder

In the Westminster system, a similar concept is covered by the term private bill which upon passage become private acts. Private bill is a general term referring to a proposal for legislation applying to a specific person; it is only a bill of attainder if it punishes. Previously, private bills were used in some Commonwealth countries to effect divorce. Other traditional uses of private bills include chartering corporations, changing the charters of existing corporations, granting monopolies, approving of public infrastructure and seizure of property for those, as well as enclosure of commons and similar redistributions of property. Those types of private bills operate to take away private property and rights from certain individuals, but are usually not called "bill of pains and penalties". The last United Kingdom bill called Bill of Pains and Penalties was passed by Lords in 1820, but not considered by Commons; it sought to divorce Queen Caroline from King George IV and adjust her titles and property accordingly, on grounds of her alleged adultery, as many private bills dealing with divorces of private persons did.

[Hello_Kitty]

6. That refers to criminal law, not taxes

Apparently, the SCOTUS has upheld retroactive taxes.

[K Gardner]

7. LOL.. you need to tell Tweety.. I just heard him talking about Bills of Attainder on his

show. Thanks for the info !

[Dollface]

2. I also find this extremely uncomfortable in a "bad precedent setting' way.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. Another DUer, TahitiNut, made a good point in another thread.

Where he said that taxing the AIG bonuses like this has the appearance of making taxes look like a punishment - which is a right wing meme.

[NightWatcher]

3. what happens when a repuke takes over and targets one of us

for this Punishment Tax?

This sets a bad example. Take the money or dont, but dont start passing target taxes

[K Gardner]

5. Exactly. n/t